DELAND -- Just two miles west of quaint downtown DeLand, a controversial development storm is sweeping through century-old yellow pines.

Soon Pelham Square -- a 200-home, 1920s-styled community with porches and picket fences -- will spread across a 56-acre historic district between Old New York Avenue and the Amtrak station.

With backing from the Volusia County Council, design and construction of the cluster of town- and single-family homes is kicking into gear amid protests from nearby residents.

"We're not necessarily opposed to this development, we're opposed to increased density," said Harley Bessire of the Hontoon Area Civic Association.

The five-year Lake Beresford Road resident shared concerns with other residents that the area cannot handle a population increase brought about by this and future development.

"If you've made the decision to make this area urban, make a decision to increase (the number of) schools and roads and (other) infrastructure," Bessire said.

Designed by the architects behind Orlando's Celebration and Baldwin Park and developed by Crosland, Pelham Square has been dubbed the area's first "new urbanist" community.

But it's deeply rooted in area history, having been revived by the North Carolina-based developer from failed plans in the 1920s to create a gateway to DeLand.

Supporters hope a planned commuter-rail system along existing CSX tracks -- chugging through Volusia, Seminole, Osceola and Orange counties -- will justify the increased density.

"You've got to plan for that in advance so you have the people there when the commuter rail comes in to attract more people to use it," said Volusia County Chairman Frank Bruno.

The project should set new ideas in motion about "walkable" communities to mass transit, said Perry Reader, president of Crosland's Florida division.

Meanwhile, opponents like Bessire question the certainty of commuter rail in the near future.

But commissions from the four counties are committed to making the rail happen with a shared initial investment of $500 million, Bruno said. Volusia County was one of the first to show interest with an $11 million investment, he said.

"The secret to mass transit is you need to have people there to use it, otherwise it becomes difficult to commute in Florida," Reader said.

CSX is now in discussion with the state about sale of the tracks for use as commuter-rail, but nothing has been finalized, said Meg Scheu, media relations specialist for the transportation company.

Walter Bennett has lived on Hontoon Road for five years and describes the neighborhood as quiet.

"We would not be opposed to any development as long as it isn't maximum density," he said. "The density is what we're against, not the advancement."

To deal with this bone of contention, Bruno said growth management and county planners are addressing ways to set the groundwork for expected growth.

The Volusia County School Board approved an agreement Tuesday with project developers, who will contribute funds based on the number of units built and their impact on the area, said Patricia Drago, executive director of facilities. It will supplement funding of the new institutions drawn from local sales tax dollars.

The board plans to begin construction on a new area high school this year and land has already been acquired for an elementary school.

But the institutions will funnel students from area schools already over capacity. Whether they can meet the needs of new families expected in the next few years remains to be seen.

Bessire expects that Pelham Square will set a precedent for future development and continued change.

"Is rural Volusia County ready to become downtown Orlando?" questioned Taver Cornett, a planning commission member who voted against the development.

Reader contended that Crosland was committed to attracting a diverse community while keeping the area's historic character intact.

"We certainly support their initiative to keep that area as rural as it should be," he said. "It's a pretty area."

With rezoning behind them, Crosland expects to wrap up planning and begin construction by mid-2007, said Dean Barberee, vice president of development. Homes will go on the market at the end of 2008 with project completion estimated by 2010.

"These decisions are going to get made and we have to live with them and hope for the best," Bessire said.

kari.cobham@news-jrnl.com

Scientists group fears more pollution

By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bush administration plans to ease clean air rules for thousands of aging industrial plants might increase air pollution, the National Academy of Sciences said Friday.

Those Clean Air Act rules are under review by the Supreme Court, which is due to receive legal briefs on the administration's attempts to rewrite the rules in 2002 and 2003.

An NAS report requested by Congress said the possibility of emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide "increases in some locations and decreases in others. However, the magnitude of the changes and the number of geographic areas affected could not be assessed."

Those chemicals contribute to smog, acid rain, soot and other fine particles that lodge in people's lungs and cause asthma and other respiratory ailments.

The academy also implicitly criticized the Environmental Protection Agency's information gathering, saying "a lack of data and the limitations of current models" prevent anyone from drawing firm conclusions about how the rules might affect air pollution.

The EPA took a different view. Bill Wehrum, EPA's acting chief of its Office of Air and Radiation, said the report "confirms that the Bush administration's approach to reducing air pollution guarantees results" by allowing more companies to use a marketplace approach that features an emissions-trading plan.

Under a trading system - which has been promoted in the EPA's Clean Air Interstate Rule - plants unable to meet the required reductions could buy emission allowances from plants that have exceeded the required reductions.

EPA has said that approach would encourage more technology advances; environmentalists said they would compromise public health.

Under the Clean Air Act's "new source review" program - including the Bush administration's changes that Congress asked the academy to study - companies must first get a permit and possibly install anti-pollution controls before building or expanding facilities that could significantly foul the air.

For almost 30 years, the program has been viewed by proponents and opponents alike as too bureaucratic and complex. In 1999, President Clinton used it to sue owners of 51 coal-burning power plants. The Bush administration continued those cases, but rewrote the rules.

Some of the administration's 2002 changes were struck down by a federal court last year; the rest went into effect only in a few states. The 2003 revisions, affecting replaced equipment, was struck down by a court two years ago.

One case, involving Duke Energy Corp., based in Charlotte, N.C., is now before the Supreme Court. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ruled last year that power plants can spew more pollutants into the air when they modernize to operate for longer hours.

Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, representing power companies, said he viewed the report as "unqualified good news" because it shows more companies should be allowed to trade emission allowances.

The NAS advises the government on scientific and technological issues.

---

On the Net:

EPA: http://www.epa.gov/nsr

National Academy of Sciences: http://www.nasonline.org/

Report faults EPA on clean air regulation

By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government is failing to reduce health risks from toxic air pollution as required by law, congressional investigators said Wednesday.

The Environmental Protection Agency has not met 30 percent of the Clean Air Act's requirements and regularly misses deadlines, they said.

EPA scientists issued their own report Wednesday, saying the agency should consider tightening its national health-based standards for smog-forming ozone to a level similar to California's, though not as restrictive as what the Swiss-based World Health Organization recommends. They said the risks of asthma and other respiratory ailments are greater than previously believed. EPA is under court order to propose a decision on this by next March.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the EPA largely has failed to regulate air pollutants from small sources, including dry cleaners and trucks. The GAO report said the EPA has not yet met 239 of the law's requirements; of those the agency did fulfill, only 12 were met on time.

"EPA has not reduced human health risks from air toxics to the extent and in the time frames envisioned in the Act," according to the report by the investigative arm of Congress.

The report was requested by nine senators - six Democrats, two Republicans and one independent - and six Democratic members of the House.

Separately, a panel set up by the U.S., Canada and Mexico reported Wednesday that pollution in North America fell by 15 percent from 1998 to 2003.

In 2003, the latest year for which figures were available, the total amount of pollution released or transferred elsewhere in North America was 3.3 million tons.

The top 10 chemicals emitted in the three nations were hydrochloric acid, methanol, sulfuric acid, hydrogen fluoride, toluene, styrene, xylenes, n-hexane, methyl ethyl ketone and carbon disulfide.

Some, such as toluene and xylenes, come from mobile sources, open burning or asphalt paving; hydrochloric acid and other chemicals come from coal-fired electric utilities.

Sen. James Jeffords, a Vermont independent, and some Democrats said the GAO report shows the EPA is allowing people to be unlawfully exposed to health risks such as cancer, reproductive damage and birth defects.

"This report confirms that EPA has abdicated its responsibility to protect our citizens from dangerous, cancer-causing pollutants," Jeffords said.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the report shows that "virtually all Americans face an increased risk of cancer from breathing toxic air pollution, yet EPA refuses to carry out the Clean Air Act's mandates, leaving everyone exposed to unnecessary cancer risks."

Agency officials said the EPA and the Bush administration are making progress. By next year, the EPA said, emissions of toxic air will have dropped by 57 percent from 1990 levels due to new standards affecting dozens of types of industrial facilities.

"Environmental progress is similar to a relay race with each administration passing the baton to the next," EPA spokeswoman Jessica Emond said. "The Bush administration completed one leg of the race, while accelerating environmental progress for future generations."

---

On the Net:

GAO report: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06669.pdf

China's growing pollution reaches U.S.

By TERENCE CHEA
Associated Press Writer

MOUNT TAMALPAIS STATE PARK, Calif. (AP) -- On a mountaintop overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Steven Cliff collects evidence of an industrial revolution taking place thousands of miles away.

The tiny, airborne particles Cliff gathers at an air monitoring station just north of San Francisco drifted over the ocean from coal-fired power plants, smelters, dust storms and diesel trucks in China and other Asian countries.

Researchers say the environmental impact of China's breakneck economic growth is being felt well beyond its borders. They worry that as China consumes more fossil fuels to feed its energy-hungry economy, the U.S. could see a sharp increase in trans-Pacific pollution that could affect human health, worsen air quality and alter climate patterns.

"We're going to see increased particulate pollution from the expansion of China for the foreseeable future," said Cliff, a research engineer at the University of California, Davis.

He has monitoring stations on Mount Tamalpais, Donner Summit near Lake Tahoe, and Mount Lassen in far Northern California. Those sites see little pollution from local sources, and the composition of the dust particles matches that of the Gobi Desert and other Asian sites, Cliff said.

About a third of the Asian pollution is dust, which is increasing due to drought and deforestation, Cliff said. The rest is composed of sulfur, soot and trace metals from the burning of coal, diesel and other fossil fuels.

Cliff is studying whether transported particulate matter could affect climate by trapping heat, reflecting light or changing rainfall patterns.

Most air pollution in U.S. cities is generated locally, but that could change if citizens in China, India and other developing nations adopt American-style consumption patterns, researchers say.

"If they started driving cars and using electricity at the rate in the developed world, the amount of pollution they generate will increase many, many times," said Tony Van Curen, a UC Davis researcher who works with Cliff.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that on certain days nearly 25 percent of the particulate matter in the skies above Los Angeles can be traced to China. Some experts predict China could one day account for a third of all California's air pollution.

Dan Jaffe, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington, said he has detected ozone, carbon monoxide, mercury and particulate matter from Asia at monitoring sites on Mount Bachelor in Oregon and Cheeka Peak in Washington state.

"There is some amount of the pollution in the air we breathe coming from halfway around the world," Jaffe said. "There ultimately is no 'away.' There is no place where you can put away your pollution anymore."

China's environmental problems are severe and getting worse. Nearly 30 years of relentless industrial expansion has fouled the country's rivers, lakes, forests, farmland and skies.

The World Bank estimates that 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China, and air pollution is blamed for about 400,000 premature deaths there each year.

Coal-fired power plants supply two-thirds of China's energy and are its biggest source of air pollution. Already the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, China on average builds a new coal-fired power plant every week.

Meanwhile, car ownership is soaring as the country's economy grows about 10 percent a year, contributing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

If current trends continue, China will surpass the U.S. as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the next decade, said Barbara Finamore, who heads the Natural Resources Defense Council's China Clean Energy program, which is helping the country boost its energy efficiency.

"China's staggering economic growth is an environmental time bomb that, unless defused, threatens to convulse the entire planet regardless of progress in all other nations," Finamore said.

Even Chinese environmental officials warn that pollution levels could quadruple over the next 15 years if the country doesn't curb energy use and emissions. Beijing plans to spend $162 billion on environmental cleanup over the next five years, but the scale of the country's pollution problems is immense.

"When you look at China's population growth and industrial growth, it's hard to imagine how air quality could improve in the near future," said Ruby Leung, a researcher at the Energy Department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., which collaborates with Chinese government scientists on atmospheric research.

Earlier this year, Leung and her colleagues published a study that found particulate pollution has darkened China's skies over the past 50 years by absorbing and deflecting the sun's rays.

China's pollution also regularly dirties the air in neighboring South Korea and Japan, but until recently researchers didn't think it had much effect on North America.

U.S. scientists have recently found that Asian pollution is consistently transported across the Pacific on air currents. It can take anywhere from five days to two weeks for particles to cross the ocean.

Some scientists predict that global warming could change those circulation patterns, either speeding or slowing the transport of pollutants from Asia.

China's environmental challenges are daunting, but the country is taking action to reduce its energy use and air pollution, said NRDC's Finamore. Beijing has set ambitious goals for increasing energy efficiency, fuel economy standards and use of renewable power sources such as wind and solar, she said.

"There are tremendous opportunities for China to slow the amount of pollution it pumps in the air," Finamore said.

Parched Dakotas Wither Into 'Wasteland'

By JAMES MacPHERSON The Associated Press

Published: Jul 30, 2006

STEELE, N.D. - Fields of wheat, durum and barley in the Dakotas this dry summer will never end up as pasta, bread or beer. What is left of the stifled crops has been salvaged to feed livestock struggling on pastures where hot winds blow clouds of dirt from dried-out ponds.

Some ranchers have been forced to sell their herds, and others are moving their cattle to greener pastures or buying more already-costly feed. Hundreds of acres of grasslands have been blackened by fires sparked by lightning or farm equipment.

"These 100-degree days for weeks steady have been burning everything up," said Steele Mayor Walter Johnson, who said he would prefer 2 feet of snow over the weather.

Farm ponds and other small bodies of water have dried out from the heat, leaving the residual alkali dust to be whipped up by the wind. The blowing dirt-and-salt mixture is a phenomenon that hasn't been seen in south-central North Dakota since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, Johnson said.

Most Of Nation Suffering

More than 60 percent of the United States has abnormally dry or drought conditions, stretching from Georgia to Arizona and across the north through the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

An area stretching from south central North Dakota to central South Dakota is the most drought-stricken region in the nation, Svoboda said.

"It's the epicenter," he said. "It's just like a wasteland in north central South Dakota."

Conditions aren't much better a little farther north. Paul Smokov and his wife, Betty, raise several hundred cattle on their 1,750-acre ranch north of Steele, a town of about 760 people.

North Dakota's all-time high temperature - 121 - was set here in July 1936. Smokov, now 81, remembers that time and thinks conditions this summer probably are worse.

"I could see this coming in May," Smokov said of the parched pastures and wilted crops. "That's the time the good Lord gives us our general rains. But we never got them this year."

Brad Rippey, a federal Agriculture Department meteorologist in Washington, said this year's drought is continuing one that started in the late 1990s. "The 1999 to 2006 drought ranks only behind the 1930s and the 1950s. It's the third-worst drought on record - period," he said.

Svoboda was reluctant to say how bad this drought might become.

"We'll have to wait to see how it plays out - but it's definitely bad," he said. "And the drought seems to not be going anywhere soon."

Herman Schumacher, who owns Herreid Livestock Auction in north-central South Dakota, said his company is handling more sales than ever because of the drought.

In May, June and July 2005, his company sold 3,800 cattle. During the same months this year, more than 27,000 cattle have been sold, he said.

"I've been in the barn here for 25 years, and I can't even compare this year to any other year," Schumacher said.

He said about 50 ranchers have run cows through his auction this year.

"Some of them just trimmed off their herds, but about a third of them were complete dispersions - they'll never be back," he said.

"This county is looking rough. These 100-degree days are just killing us," said Gwen Payne, a North Dakota State University extension agent in Kidder County, which includes Steele.

It's The Only Industry Here

The Agriculture Department says North Dakota last year led the nation in production of 15 commodity classes, including spring wheat, durum wheat, barley, oats, canola, pinto beans, dry edible peas, lentils, flaxseed, sunflower and honey.

North Dakota State University professor Larry Leistritz said it's too early to tell what this year's drought will do to commodity prices. Flour prices already have gone up and may go higher because of the effect of drought on wheat.

"There will be somewhat higher grain prices, no doubt about it," Leistritz said. "With livestock, the short-term effect may mean depressed meat prices, with a larger number of animals being sent to slaughter. But in the longer run, it may prolong the period of relatively high meat prices."

Eventually, more than farmers could suffer.

"Agriculture is not only the biggest industry in the state, it's just about the only industry," Leistritz said. "Communities live or die with the fortunes of agriculture."

Susie White, who runs the Lone Steer motel and restaurant in Steele, along Interstate 94, said even out-of-state travelers notice the drought.

"Even I never paid attention to the crops around here. But I notice them now because they're not there," she said.

"We're all wondering how we're going to stay alive this winter if the farmers don't make any money this summer," she said.

WEATHERING THE DRY SPELL

Visit the National Drought Mitigation Center online at drought.unl.edu to learn how to prepare for and deal with drought conditions.

KILLER BEES Buzz The Heartland

LAKE PLACID - Killer bees have made a little honey in Highlands County, as they have in some 20 counties in the state.

The state’s bee inspector destroyed two colonies of the bad bees west of Lake Placid in May 2005.

Officially, killer bees are called African honey bees, earning the killer nickname for their aggressive nature. The sting itself has no more bite, no more venom than any other flying bug.

“Any bee, wasp, yellow jacket, hornet can be a killer if you’re allergic to the sting. One bee, one bite can kill somebody and someone else might survive 1,000 bites,” said Glenn Eroh, an Avon Park bee keeper.

John Bastianelli is the bee inspector for the state of Florida Department of Agriculture, Division of Plant Industries, who “depopulated” the two colonies that weren’t anywhere near homes.

“There haven’t been any confirmed reports since then,” he said.

Bastianelli investigates reports of problem bees in this part of Florida and said the number of problem bee calls has increased this month.

“I’ve had 40 calls in a month. About a dozen calls this week.” Bastianelli said Thursday. Most of the time the calls are false alarms.

Eroh said, “It’s a buggy year. There’s a better nectar flow than usual. The bees are reproducing more than other years because there is a better food source.”

Eroh worries that people will panic and want all bees gone.

“People ask me all the time if I have killer bees on my truck,” he said, pointing to the empty box hives strapped to the back of his diesel truck.

Bastianelli thinks Highlands County is fortunate since LaBelle had about 40 colonies confirmed and destroyed.

The colonies that were destroyed here were discovered when suspect bees found their way into special African bee traps filled with a special bait that attracts the killer bee.

The suspect bees are sent to a state lab in Gainesville and are DNA tested.

Once the bees are found positive of the African strain, the area around the bee trap is searched until the colony is found and destroyed.

“We go out about in the dark and treat it with insecticide,” Bastianelli said.

Bastianelli said there are traps all over the state that are constantly monitored. Those near the state’s ports are monitored as often as every few days.

He said the killer bees constantly come into the state at the ports on container ships bearing imports so the best way to track them is from that source.

“I killed a swarm in 1986,” in Florida, Bastianelli said.

“We have to deal with this. A bee keeper can work an entirehive of European honey bees and maybe get stung once or twice. If it were African bees the bee keeper would be stung 30, 50 maybe more times in the same time period.”

That aggression is the only clue because the African bee looks just like the domestic honey bee native to Europe.

“They look the same. The African bee might be slightly smaller but you can’t tell by looking at them,” said Eroh, who is a certified and licensed bee keeper.

Thursday, Eroh drove his diesel truck to one set hives that he maintains and harvests for a variety of honey. He has 500 hives scattered in pastures, stands of palmettos and in citrus groves near Avon Park and in Hardee County.

This particular group of hives is in various stages of producing palmetto honey, a rich, gold honey with a taste of its own. A field thick with palmettos is a stone’s throw away. Orange blossom honey is harvested from hives in orange groves.

Eroh uses a smoker to pump clouds into the hive before he touches them.

“The bees are afraid of the smoke. They aren’t afraid of you,” Eroh said.

The smoke alerts the bees that there might be a fire, and as a defense, the bees fill up on the honey in case they have to leave the hive. That makes them slower and more docile.

Eroh took a hive apart to show the bees use each box.

The boxes are the separate “rooms” that make up the “house.”

There is one queen for every hive.

The males or drones have only one purpose and that is to breed with the queen. Eroh said a bee only lives six weeks so the cycle of breeding, producing larvae and the rearing of baby bees into mature drones and the female workers is constant.

“Responsible bee keepers keep healthy colonies of bees,” Eroh said. That includes treating the colony for the Varroa mites, one of several parasites that can plague honey bees.

Well-managed hives actually deter African bees.

“If Africanized bees come into an area to forage and don’t find adequate food because of managed colonies in the area, they will move on,” according to the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Eroh said that African bees are honey bees but their aggressive nature would make it impossible to harvest the honey.

“You don’t want the African bees. You can’t work with them,” Eroh.

He has been playing with bees since he was 17 but has been a full-time beekeeper for a half-dozen years now.

“I love what I do. I’ve done a lot of things. It’s a hot job but it’s a good job.”

Eroh hopes people won’t begin to fear all honey bees.

“We need honey bees,” he said. “They are an important part of the food supply Even lettuce has to be pollinated.

“A couple of hours of this can pretty much do you in,” Eroh said.

The bees are harmlessly buzzing about their six story condominium that a beekeeper calls a hive and the industry calls an apiary.

A stray bee investigates by buzzing around your head.

And even though you’re told that swatting at the bee isn’t going to work, the bee gets too close and reflexes take over.

The bee hits your cheek and a tiny knife pierces your sweaty skin and for several seconds, you wish you could run from that unique burning sensation.

Derrick Leeks described his bee bite experience as a “tingling.”

He delivers packages for UPS and he was working when he was stung.

“I was going up to a house with a package. I hit a hedge and they just came out of there. One of them got me right over my eye,” Leeks said.

Heath Todd said he’s been stung several times, once on his stomach.

“Wasps are the worst,” Todd said.

His father, Wayne Todd, remembered his brother Johnny being stung 16 times by wasps working in an old packing house in Avon Park.

“They say that tobacco is the best thing to put on a sting. But if you make a paste out of meat tenderizer, that really works to draw the poison out.”

Bee keeper Eroh Glenn goes about the job of checking his hives slowly, gracefully.

Quick moves tend to startle his honey bees.

“Honey bees tend to go for your face,” Eroh said.

They don’t seem to bother him at all.

“Oh they do. I get bit all the time. Sometimes you get done doing your work without a bite and then you get in the truck a one stings you right on the nose. But imagine that happening with African bees. It wouldn’t be just one or two bites,” Eroh said.

African honey bees were brought to Brazil in the 1950s for testing as possible alternatives to the gentle European honey bee because of their reputation for thriving in a tropical environment.

Some escaped, as it often happens, and the rest is history.

The state Department of Agriculture is combating the swarms of killer bees with bee traps, tests and destroying colonies when they are discovered.

The state also inspects apiaries, or bee farms and requires beekeepers to be licensed and certified.

Bastianelli said the state has also been working to educate firefighters, EMTs and emergency hospital staff, and other responders on how to emergencies linked to African bees.

*

Environmental damage sickens seas

Study: Red tide may weaken people's immune systems

By KATE SPINNER

New York Times Regional Newspapers

County should spend more to preserve land

County government should resist the temptation to turn a portion of a voter-approved sales tax increase into the penance for Pasco.

Authorized by the electorate in spring 2004, the penny on the dollar sales tax increase finances new schools, roads, public safety equipment and environmental land preservation.

It is that last item that presents opportunities for Pasco County's beleaguered utilities department to escape severe punishment from state regulators. Under a consent order approved by Pasco commissioners, the county can use already planned improvements to mitigate a Department of Environmental Regulation penalty.

The county, facing a $1.8-million fine for repeated water and sewage failures, agreed to make improvements in its treatment and storage of sewage and reclaimed water.

A previously approved $66-million bond issue is covering the costs. In addition, the county can trim the fine to $359,000 if it does other, in-kind work, costing at least $2.1-million over the next two years. The list of work, still being compiled, can include such things as preserving sensitive land or upgrading areas on septic systems.

It's a fair trade. Instead of sending $1.44-million to the state, the county can spend $2.1-million within its boundaries. But, here's the rub: The county can meet its DEP obligation by getting credit for work it planned to do anyway. In other words, the environmental land acquisition and management program (ELAMP), financed by the Penny for Pasco sales tax increase, can offset the consent order obligations.

Where's the accountability? If developers attempted such a tactic to meet environmental requirements on wetlands, they'd be accused of double-dipping.

In March 2004, voters approved the tax, raising an estimated $3.6-million annually over 10 years for land preservation, and collection began Jan. 1, 2005. The county just made its first foray into preservation by agreeing to spend $1.1-million to protect 650 acres in north-central Pasco, about a third of which consists of wetlands at the headwaters of the Pithlachascotee River.

If the county wants to use existing programs to escape state sanctions, commissioners at least should toss an additional $1.44-million into the ELAMP fund to help acquire or restore sensitive land. It's relatively paltry in comparison with the account's expected 10-year $36-million total, but at least it would demonstrate an environmental commitment beyond what voters authorized.

It's not a new idea. Pinellas County's utilities department has accumulated preserved land for years. In Pasco, however, management of utility-acquired land should remain with ELAMP, which would diffuse the temptation to acquire property to land-bank for future water projects instead of for preservation and/or recreation.

Let's not forget what inspired the DEP action: 22-million gallons of raw sewage spilled from eight plants, including a breach near Lake Bernadette that went undetected for more than a month; more than 18-million gallons of poorly treated wastewater was sent to customers for irrigation; ignoring state orders to stop unauthorized expansion of the Wesley Chapel sewage treatment plant; and building and using a secret pipe to dump stormwater and partially treated wastewater into a tributary of the Hillsborough River.

It's a shameful list of transgressions, but earlier this year the state scrutiny brought unsolicited votes of confidence for utilities director Bruce Kennedy from Commissioners Pat Mulieri and Steve Simon.

They and the rest of the commission should be just as confident about pumping extra money into land preservation.

Talk of east-west road revs up again

In the 1980s, the idea hit a dead end. Now, many Lutz residents tired of traffic and speeders welcome the plan.

LUTZ - In its 95-year history, Lutz has opposed many things, but none like the infamous East-West Road of the 1980s. Lutz had a campaign song, a music video, hundreds of protesters and thousands of red and white bumper stickers.

Tampa Bay's leadership was heavily behind plans to build a perimeter expressway around Tampa, including the Veterans Expressway and Interstate 75. But the raucous opposition, and a timely power play in Tallahassee, stopped the expressway at N Dale Mabry Highway.

No politician has dared raise the topic since.

But lately, drivers have. By the thousands, they are weaving east and west through Lutz's older, two-lane roads. They're impatient for something better.

Many, including Lutz residents, spoke up for a new east-west road earlier this year in a series of hearings on speeding problems.

"That would definitely relieve Lutz and these roads that were built 70 years ago," says one, Bruce Boyer, who has lived in Lutz 30 years.

Boyer was one of the protesters in the 1980s. But he has changed his mind as 8,000 cars each weekday tear along Crenshaw Lake Road past his neighborhood.

"The east-west traffic, where people are passing through Lutz, we're not going to stop that," Boyer says.

Notably, Mary Figg also is voicing regret. As a member of the Florida House from Lutz through the 1980s, Figg gained huge influence over the state's transportation budget. Then she dropped a final ax on the East-West Road.

That move, she says now, "was shortsighted, you know? It was parochial."

The loudest clamor for a new east-west road may be just over the horizon, because the drive through Lutz that many have become accustomed to may soon be even more aggravating.

Hillsborough County ended its traffic hearings in May by authorizing several Lutz neighborhoods to petition for speed tables on their roads. Activists along Crenshaw Lake already have turned in the necessary signatures. Construction money waits. If county commissioners approve, four speed tables and four speed cushions could be installed next year on the road, a favorite choice of east-west commuters.

Boyer was one of the few neighbors who refused to sign the petitions. He thinks the speed tables will "patch" a problem that needs a larger cure.

"It's just going to irritate everybody," Boyer says.

Dodging water

Mother Nature long ago decreed that it would be tough to find a straight east-west route through northern Hillsborough County.

She created the county's biggest chain of lakes through Keystone and the second biggest through Lutz and Carrollwood. She made their waters migrate from north to south, toward Tampa Bay.

Lakes block roads. W Fowler Avenue ends just east of Lake Eckles. W Fletcher Avenue bends between Lake George and Lake Ellen. Van Dyke Road has bookends: Lake Keystone on the west and Lake Brant on the east.

Lutz is named, in part, for the man who was audacious enough in 1909 to carve out the community's longest east-west transportation corridor. The railroad that Charles Lutz built laid a rough path for Lutz-Lake Fern Road. But it veered around so many lakes and swamps that locals nicknamed it the "Pea Vine Railroad."

By 1980, road planners were dodging neighborhoods as well as water, and the neighborhoods fought back. The battle over an east-west road raged for years.

A meeting in 1988 attracted 550 citizens, mostly opposing the project. They were so rowdy the chairman repeatedly threatened to adjourn. Some carried a flag-draped coffin representing "The American Neighborhood."

Road planners nevertheless gave the East-West Road top priority.

But Figg was watching. First elected to the House in 1982, she was appointed in 1988 to lead the transportation subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. So Figg, more than any of the other 119 House members, shaped the budget of the Florida Transportation Department. And the East-West Road, more than any issue she ever had encountered, enraged her constituents.

Figg instructed the department to kill it.

"Even though it's parochial, people have a right to what they want," Figg says. "They have a right to ask their legislator to do what they want."

But, "It was not the best thought-out decision," she says.

Why?

"We don't have any good east-west roads in Hillsborough County."

East-West slowdown

In 1991, around the time Figg blocked the East-West Road, Lea May and her family moved from New York to Crenshaw Lake Road.

"The Realtor told us, 'Don't say East-West Road in Lutz,' "May recalls.

Now, 17 years later, May says half her neighbors want just such a road. May met most of them this spring as she and several allies obtained more than 160 signatures in favor of speed tables on Crenshaw Lake.

Along with Van Dyke, Crenshaw Lake has received much of the traffic the East-West Road was meant to carry.

"I don't care if they do use this as the East-West Road, as long as they slow traffic down to the speed limit," May says.

Next month, the petitions are likely to trigger a routine vote of the County Commission to build the tables, says Buz Barbour, a manager for the county's traffic-control efforts. It would be on the noncontroversial "consent agenda," with no discussion planned. Construction would follow within six months, Barbour says.

Then, a project that was debated entirely within Lutz would be imposed on drivers from outside Lutz. The speed tables would slow down commuters between Keystone and the University of South Florida area, between New Tampa and the Van Dyke area.

Four speed tables and four speed cushions would be built. The devices are 3.5 inches tall and 10 feet across, with 6-foot ramps. Tables span the roadway from shoulder to shoulder. Cushions do most of that, but leave gaps spaced for emergency vehicles to pass without slowing. A driver would encounter a cushion then a table as he approached each of Crenshaw Lake's two S-curves, and a table, then cushions leaving each curve.

The recommended speed for crossing the devices is 20 mph. Elsewhere, the road's speed limit would drop to 30 from 35.

Spunky idea

Two years ago, another option surfaced, like a spunky weed sprouting from asphalt. Long-range planners with Hillsborough County suggested that Lutz consider an eastward extension of Van Dyke Road to U.S. 41. That would create a modest East-West Road, at least from Gunn Highway to six-lane U.S. 41.

The extension would have required the county to buy and raze several homes, or build bridges over major swamps. Neighbors rallied in protest. The county quickly shelved the idea.

"Occasionally, we'll get a phone call," says Ned Baier, Hillsborough County's transportation planning manager. "They'll ask, 'Have you ever looked at a connection between the Suncoast Parkway and I-275?' Or, "Why does the Veterans Expressway end at Dale Mabry?' "

Beyond the history lessons, Baier's answer for the time being is, "The county's not looking to add projects that are unpopular, and that we don't have money for."

"The community will not unite on that subject," says Denise Layne, past president of the Lutz Civic Association, and moderator of the Lutz Transportation Task Force.

"I don't think it's going to happen in the next 10 to 20 years," she says. "If the will is there, it might be cut to 10, and I don't think the will is there."

Now, says Figg, "It's a little bit late to be talking about an east-west road through Lutz."

Bill Coats can be reached at coats@sptimes.com or 813 269-5309.

State Hasn't Solved Insurance Problem

The policy on his 1990 concrete block home, northwest of Avon Park, was canceled, effective Sept. 23, 2006.

“I’m out hunting now for a place to pick up my insurance,” he said Thursday from downtown Sebring. He had already been turned down by Allstate. “I’m not sure who to talk to next.”

Johnson, from Celebration, suggested repealing a state law that eliminated a homeowners’ appeal of decisions on whether damage was caused by wind or water.

Charlotte Pressler has heard all the reasons why insurance companies won’t sell insurance policies: that insurance companies have taken too many losses in Florida during the past two years; that older homes have substandard pipes and wiring, which increases their risk; that insurers aren’t writing insurance any more for older homes.

Pressler is an English and philosophy professor at South Florida Community College. She has been restoring her 80-year-old Craftsman bungalow in Palmdale, Sebring’s first-ever subdivision.

Pressler’s $80 per-month insurance policy was cancelled, and she had buy a policy from the state of Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Tax and insurance now cost $200 a month – a third of her monthly payment.

Florida Family Insurance decided not to renew the policy.

“They did not give a reason,” Pressler said.

It was the same for her parents, who live in a condo on Madera Beach.

“Their’s was canceled, and they had to get Citizen’s,” Pressler said.

She suggested that the local and state governments must act.

“I believe that if this area is going to attract people that are going to help the community grow, one of the real keys is older, restored housing, which tends to attract professional people,” Pressler said. If cities want to control sprawl and preserve their historic districts, she said, it will be impossible unless residents can get reasonably priced insurance.

In other cities, historic homes are being bought for their scenic lots on lakes or quiet streets, torn down, and replaced by mini- mansions. The current insurance bias toward new houses makes that scenario more likely, she said.

And if people are unable to get bank loans on older homes, the McMansion scenario could happen in Sebring, she warned.

She doesn’t think it’s necessary to retrofit old houses to current hurricane standards, like roof tiedowns.

She reasons that her wood clapboard house has survived every Florida hurricane since 1926, proof that it’s more weather-worthy than the new condos, townhouses and homes that insurance companies prefer to insure.

A spokesman for the Democratic candidate in the CFO’s race, Alex Sink, said she would try to strengthen the powers of the insurance commissioner to act on behalf of consumers, although she hasn’t released a plan with the specifics.

Sink also would try to form a regional catastrophe fund to create a backup pool with other hurricane and disaster-prone states to try to spread the reinsurance risk.

Meanwhile, Citizens President Bob Ricker said Thursday the company has $5 billion in reserves to cover potential losses in the current hurricane season.

“We are in excellent shape financially to deal with losses this year,” Ricker said.

The company had about $2 billion in cash and then the sale of about $3 billion in bonds gave it a cushion for paying claims. Another $5 billion is available from the CAT fund if needed, Ricker said.

“I’ve been insured with them since I first bought this house about 12 years ago,” Richardson said.

The cancellation is “based on negative exposure to hurricane losses in Florida,” the letter said, “not based on individual risk characteristics.”

Richardson, an elderly man whose wife died a year ago, tried to get insurance from Allstate. But Allstate has already canceled 120,000 policies in Florida, and said two weeks ago it plans to cancel 120,000 more policies.

“They said this house was too old for them to insure,” Richardson said. “It was built in 1990.”

Richardson’s daughter has joined the search.

“She is trying to find someone,” Richardson said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Wonder why our insurance rates are so high???

Home sweet flooded home

Despite repeated flooding, residents love the tropical feel of Shore Acres. But all of St. Petersburg knows there is a price to pay for living just above sea level.

infobox:

FLOOD CONTROL

Over the past 12 years, the city has poured more money into Shore Acres for flood control projects than any other neighborhood: more than $6.1-million. The efforts have all but eliminated routine flooding from high tides.

1994 - 10 stormwater controls south of Connecticut Avenue NE. Cost: $180,000.

1995 - Bayou Grande Boulevard, from Dover Street to Venetian Place, raised 6 to 8 inches with larger drainage pipes. Cost: $500,000.

1995 - Nebraska Avenue from Bayou Grande Boulevard to Chancellor Street, raised 4 to 6 inches with new drainage outfalls. Cost: $130,000.

2000 - Bayou Grande Boulevard from Venetian Place to 62nd Avenue NE, raised 6 to 8 inches. Cost: $1.2-million.

2001 - Delaware, Helena and Arizona avenues raised 6 to 8 inches; master storm drainage system replaced. Cost: $4.1-million.

2001 - Modification of stormwater controls in lowest-lying areas. Cost: $50,000.

By 2009 - About 15 additional stormwater controls to be installed. Estimated cost: $100,000.

Source: City of St. Petersburg

FLOOD INSURANCE CLAIMS

In 1996, many of the 3,000 homeowners in Shore Acres were flooded in Tropical Storm Josephine, and St. Petersburg landed on a national list of the 20 areas highest in repeat flood insurance claims.

Since then, the numbers have dropped significantly.